Diogenes:When Colin Powell (originally) smartly warned us all "if you break it, you own it," he neglected to mention what a farking lemon the merchandise was.

Fu*k that guy. He's arguably the worst of the bunch since he clearly knew the reasons for invading were bullshiat, but went in front of the UN and the American people anyway and lied his ass off. Piece of sh*t.

And two decades and 4 trillion dollars later, this is an excellent example why the US cannot engage in "nationbuilding."

We barely won WWII. The illusion that we can wage imperialistic police actions with "democracy" as a flimsy pretense should have been a lesson learned in 1953 with Korea, let alone 1973 with Vietnam and now this shiat.

vpb:Chris Ween: What did they compare military quagmires to before Vietnam?

The previous quagmire, WW I. Now we get to retire Vietnam and compare them to Iraq.

The modern high commitment military quagmire or protractacred proxy war is only possible with two large wealthy nations such as Russia and America in Vietnam, or one really farkin stupid wealthy nation like America in Iraq. The people who supported invading Iraq should have to wear a sign warning the rest of us not to trust their judgement and also pay for it with increased taxes.

What do you mean already? Most of us have been calling it Vietnam 2 since the WMD lies or before. A big farking waste of time that we should have never even started in the first place. The Great Patriotic hurpadurp war that broke America.

Hopefully Obama stops pandering to to the hurpublicans and says "fark you iraq, go eat a dick" and keeps the bombs at home.

We'd be out of Iraq by now if this war were exactly like Vietnam, as our campuses and streets would be burning by now.Parents would be dreading their sons coming of age only to be shipped off to a slaughter and powerful politicians would be scrambling to get their sons a gig with the national guard stateside.This country would benefit greatly by reestablishing the draft,as visions of 1968 scare the shiat out of politicians and make them much less likely to fark around where they don't belong.

McCain is the one saying "I told you so", when the real person who should be saying such is Biden. He predicted (and wanted to encourage) a Shia/Sunni/Kurd split with a loose federal government in Baghdad years ago.

And two decades and 4 trillion dollars later, this is an excellent example why the US cannot engage in "nationbuilding."

We barely won WWII. The illusion that we can wage imperialistic police actions with "democracy" as a flimsy pretense should have been a lesson learned in 1953 with Korea, let alone 1973 with Vietnam and now this shiat.

we didn't even try to nation build. arguably the iraq provisional authority did the opposite. most of its decisions involved tearing down the economic and civil national structures that we hadn't blown up and then not actually replacing them with anything else.

kapaso:vpb: Chris Ween: What did they compare military quagmires to before Vietnam?

The previous quagmire, WW I. Now we get to retire Vietnam and compare them to Iraq.

The modern high commitment military quagmire or protractacred proxy war is only possible with two large wealthy nations such as Russia and America in Vietnam, or one really farkin stupid wealthy nation like America in Iraq. The people who supported invading Iraq should have to wear a sign warning the rest of us not to trust their judgement and also pay for it with increased taxes.

I supported it when it started. I was frightened, angry, and foolish enough to believe that the administration wasn't psychotic enough to lie just to start a war. I regret that more every day.

The US is better off just staying on the sidelines and watching. The Iranians are going batshiat over the prospect of having a radical Sunni state on their southern border. As soon as they get into the heavily Shi'ite areas, they'll intervene. Which may have been the plan all along....

Oh man, this is gonna be so fun. See, at first, the only way we could be conned into this bullsh*t was for a bunch of guys to be all "THEY'RE GONNA WMD YOUR CHILDREN! MUSHROOM CLOUD! MUSHROOM CLOUD!" but now, all they have to do is point out how since we've already sunk trillions into this sh*thole, we can't LEAVE, if we leave, it'll undo all our hard work just barely keeping that sh*thole from sinking into mass civil war. We have to stay there forever babysitting these f*cking assholes, or it will have ALL BEEN FOR NAUGHT. Can't have that. Can't have that bullsh*t war have been COMPLETELY pointless. Then those f*cking asshole liberals will have been right all along. And that, my friends, is the real tragedy here.

neongoats:Hopefully Obama stops pandering to to the hurpublicans and says "fark you iraq, go eat a dick" and keeps the bombs at home.

So far, that's what's he's done.

The issue is that it would, um, be a Very Bad Thing in general if a group so extreme they got kicked out of Al Queda took over much of Iraq. That being said, the ISIS seems to have no interest in terroristic attacks outside the Middle East, which makes their methods different from Al Queda and much less of a direct security problem for the United States.

And two decades and 4 trillion dollars later, this is an excellent example why the US cannot engage in "nationbuilding."

We barely won WWII. The illusion that we can wage imperialistic police actions with "democracy" as a flimsy pretense should have been a lesson learned in 1953 with Korea, let alone 1973 with Vietnam and now this shiat.

It got Churchill fired, and it did turn into a quagmire. However, compared to what was going on in France, it was a much smaller-scale quagmire. Plus, it damn near worked. If just a few more things had gone right, they would have seized the peninsula, which almost certainly would have meant the fall of Istanbul, and therefore Turkey would have been knocked out of the war.

World history would have been far, far different if just a few more men had kept their wits on a few hilltops at a few critical moments.